Hi all,
Touchscreen and pen input
I like to add to this discussion the use on interactive white boards. I often use Inkscape on white boards in classrooms, which in general works very well when using the pressure pen tool. Text and drawings can be easily made and getting students to interact with it can be quite fun. I do recognise the double click error though as it is very easy to have a touch screen react to a hovering finger as a double click, which for instance breaks a group object when dragging it and then selects a smaller part of it where the finger was.
With many manufacturers producing touch screen enabled laptops, tablets and keyslabs, with or without stylus or even pressure pens I would certainly applaud any attempt to have a user definable toolbox added to the interface. Microsoft Surface has proven to be a success WITH stylus and others are copying the format such as Huawei with the Mate.
When a keyboard is missing it is quite a hassle to do something simple as an Undo or any of the CTRL+ SHIFT+ ALT+ functions. Having a persistant button on screen for those combinations would make sense for white boards that DO NOT HAVE multitouch and older pen input devices like my old IBM X41 T. I can also imagine a use for the pen input devices like Wacom tablets here.
For both pen input and whiteboard I reverted back to Inkscape 0.48 as the new slider widget for values in opacity and blur proved to be too hard to use. Using a mouse it is hard enough to move your finger within a 5 px sensitivity, but for a finger or stylus, that is near impossible. Their precision level isn't the same as a mouse.
Now instead of a total redesign of the interface, how much work would it be to just add a toolbox, like the one on the left side? But with user definable keys and a standard set of keys like CTRL, SHIFT, ALT, Undo, Redo and maybe a Number button to type in numeric keypad widget, to touch in a number. The latter might also be useful to select first before selecting one of the slider widgets so instead of accidentally moving the slider from 0.3% blur to 97% blur and waiting quite a bit to click the right spot this time before you get to the function actually desired?
Basically it would only be a widget were you can define keyboard mappings to a key, so not really a big deal to make I would think.
UI Design
Eventually that might lead to a fully user definable tool set, where a user might choose to only have his preferred tools on screen and nothing else on a full screen display for minimalist with one or several collapsible tool boxes, user defined so without the clutter of options you hardly ever use and more room for those nifty LPE's that you might actually want to use in another way that through a drop down menu as option number X.
Coreldraw had a similar functionality that allowed you to remove the clutter but made the mistake to not display half the functionality in the first place. Unless you knew what to look for you would never use it, so I would suggest a few default toolsets to be included that give all options.
It might even allow users to interchange their favorite tool settings for specific tasks (Cutter, Embroiders, Illustrators, Text layout, Web layout, etc.), creating a whole new class of user interactivity online.
I could also imagine creating widgets from widgets, as to set values you use a lot but not exclusively. Now you set the values for a tool once and every next use of the tool will have the same setting. i.e. I make a rect have rounded corners and the next rect I draw inherits the setting. Same with color etc. Same with LPE settings. However, quite often I have a certain type of setting I would like to remember. So far the way to do that is open the document I used it in, find the object and then copy the settings to a new object. Ehm,.. not all that straightforward.
Now if you could just create a new tool widget using the current settings of your LPE, Pen tool, Rect or whatever, it would make things a bit simpler for authors. Imagine 5 Pen settings you use a lot 1,2,4,8,16 px width and instead of having to move a slider in the context menu all the time, just adding a widget for that with the correct width, colour and whatever. For sure that shouldn't be in the default UI, but it would be a great productivity tool for those that do cartoon drawings.
Imagine 12 settings for a LPE tool you use a lot. 3 types of Lorum Ipsum settings. Basically anything that normally needs lots of mouse clicks and number setting to get used, collected into a single action. Shift+ to edit the setting. CTRL+ to create a child widget. ALT+ to save the new settings. Sounds like bliss to me.
Now understandably, you don't want to end up with 200 icons lining your screen either, so having them collapsible into groups would be a great way to solve all the clutter as you won't use them all at the same time either.
As suggested by CR, this could just as well be just another screen view option as well, leaving the old interface intact for those that want tons of options in sight and allow for switching when looking for something you do not know the name for to create a new widget. It would certainly encourage experimenting with new options if they are more readily available on screen using a single click rather than having to find them in a list of options.
As there are now several people interested in forming a UI design team, it may well be an idea to have them form a workgroup to discuss ideas and form that into a proposal. As a long time user of about any graphics design tool ever produced including Inkscape and 20 years experience designing UI, I would gladly add my two cents to the discussion. Having the core programmers focus on functionality rather than user interaction may be useful as well once we've established a default UI and defined all interaction standards and some possible alternative methods related to theme or platform.
The option to theme Inkscape is a recurrent one and though I am not all that convinced by the need for it, having the capability as a result of a UI redesign wouldn't hurt either. It would allow for some widgets to interact in a different way depending on input method for instance. That would allow for the fingerpaint version of the UI as well.
Oh, and to avoid blank stares, I've included an example of how I think the UI of Inkscape might evolve. Mind you, this is a very early prototype just to explain the idea, so not much eye candy yet.
Cheers,
Jelle
Message: 3 Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 16:23:44 -0600 From: "Brynn" <brynn@...3133...> Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape with touch screens? To: "C R" <cajhne@...400...> Cc: Inkscape-Devel Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Message-ID: <AE01C05DEE7F4C4C85A05869E68BD785@...3282...> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original
Hi and thanks, C R.
So you mean that Inkscape's pressure sensitivity works on a touch screen? You mean like with a stylus, or do you mean using a graphics tablet's pen on the touch screen?
No, I've never used a touchscreen at all (I never even had a smart phone, much less tablet). (I'm technology-deprived :-p)
Thanks again.
From: C R Sent: Friday, March 18, 2016 8:05 AM To: Brynn Cc: Inkscape-Devel Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape with touch screens?
I can not speak for the project, however here are my thoughts about that much requested tablet-interface redesign:
I use Inkscape on a Lenovo 2-in-1 (X220T) running Ubuntu Linux without issue. Even the pen and pressure sensitivity works for drawing.
As far as optimising Inkscape for a touchscreen interface sans-pen... Have you ever tried to use a vector editor on a tablet using just your fingers?
I have on Android, and let me tell you, it sucks a whole lot trying to edit precision points and curves with the blunt tips of the meaty paw-tentacles we humans are saddled with. :) It's why we invented things like trackpads and styluses.
Inkscape presently works great with a stylus. I find the stylus+keyboard/laptop mode extra convenient, because you get all your hotkeys and also the touch/pen screen coolness as well.
For a bit of a laugh you could try out Photoshop on an Android tablet to see what a professional graphics application looks like when it's forced into the Tablet/touch screen paradigm. My findings? You will wish for death after about 10 minutes of attempting to replace GIMP or Photoshop in a professional graphics workflow with it. THe current convention of endless tapping through menus with unlabled icons is hell, and it's what the industry wants to tell people is the future. They do it just to fit that futuristic image, to seem on top of change and to sell you stuff, but even Apple has added a stylus and keyboard cover to their latest iPad, so it's slowly going back in the other direction.
With tablets you will not get the benefit of a speedy hotkey-based workflow either. This is a problem with tablets, and the (incorrect, though popular) idea that tablets are the way of the future and will replace laptops entirely at some point. For the general public, sure. For serious graphics work. No, I'd say: not ever. Not if you value your time anyway. :)
I think what you are seeing in the industry is a 2-in-1 admission that a tablet alone just isn't the right format for serious work. Inkscape is a serious vector illustration program, with focus on professional workflows. Looking trendy with an ultraportable tablet computer takes a bit of a backseat to usability when you have to get projects done.
I bit of buying advice, though: avoid the higher dpi screens. Inkscape is much slower on highdpi screens, and you will save both battery and money choosing a "regular" 1080p screen (if you want that high of resolution). Avoid 4k displays on newer 2-in-1s. I bought a Dell XPS 13 developer eddition, only to return it when Inkscape ran too slowly to be usable on it. I tried adjusting the DPI settings, but no amount of tweaking the interface made it fast enough. With this in mind, ymmv.
This does not mean we can't add nice things that are optimised for tablet use. Take Krita for example. They feature a hovering control-palate that appears when a tablet pen button is pressed. Quite convenient. Note however that they did not need to change the entire interface just to add that bit of functionality. Most artists would appreciate it if it weren't as well, I think. :)
I'd say enjoy your 2-in-1 to it's full capacity and use it in both modes at once. Then you sacrifice nothing. :)
My 2p.
On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 9:35 AM, Brynn <brynn@...3133...> wrote:
Hi Friends, Occassionally we've had a message in forums about using Inkscape with a touch screen. And in the past I've always answered "not yet". But now I'm shopping for a new laptop, and approx 90% of the laptops available in my RAM range (16 gb) are "2 in 1" types which have touch screens. I've had to search rather closely to find a non-touch screen! If I look in the lower range of RAM (around 6 gb) the available systems are roughly split between touch and non-touch screens. But even then, it gives the impression that touchscreen computers are much more common than I had imagined. The last time I bought a new computer, touchscreens were rare! Anyway, I wanted to ask the development community -- will Inkscape ever be made to work using a touch screen, or will it always be mouse (or graphics tablet/pen) driven (also commandline)? Or is using a touch screen essentially the same as a graphics tablet, and Inkscape is already touch-capable? Thanks for some clarity (answer doesn't need to be very technical) :-)
Thank you very much, brynn
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